The invention relates generally to industrial program controllers of the type wherein a simple process is to be sequentially provided with control signals.
In prior art industrial process controllers it had been necessary to route the program through some form of computer peripheral equipment and, on occasion, through a complex general purpose computer. In the event a program step did not satisfy the requirements it was generally necessary to rewrite the entire program or to purchase a corrected program in the form of magnetic tape or punched paper tape from a soft ware supplier. Mechanical sequencing devices such as rotating drums have also been used for industrial process control, but are necessarily slow, lack flexibility, and require attention.
It is an object of this invention to provide a simple electronic industrial process controller where no computer peripheral equipment would be necessary.
A further object is to provide a controller that could be programmed, reviewed and run by a single operator through a plurality of switches mounted on a single panel.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a controller where during a check out or review procedure of the program any of the program steps could be changed at will from the operator's panel without the necessity for completely rewriting the program.